This week let’s try some warm-ups. What’s a warm-up? It’s an idea starter, a mind jogger, something to help you write when your brain power is slowing down or you just can’t get started. We’ll try two this week and add more in the following weeks.

Character Sketch: Write a few paragraphs about a character you want to use in a short story or novel. Who is this person? Describe this person–looks, hobbies, job, likes/dislikes, life’s goals. What is keeping this person from obtaining those goals/desires? Keep writing about this person until you feel you have been friends for years.

Dialogue: Eavesdrop on a conversation at the office, in the grocery store, at the health club or at a social event, and then recreate that conversation as dialogue for your story. Write it until it reads like people actually talk to each other.

Everybody has a story to tell—your time is NOW. OR IS IT! Before you roll up your sleeves, sharpen some pencils or turn on the computer, clear those dust bunnies from your brain, hone up your imagination to start on your writing journey, STOP, look in the mirror and be candid with the person staring back at you as you answer question #1: why do you want to write?

Writing is a crowded profession—it attracts more people than any of the other arts, made especially popular today with the advent of digital online publishing. Most people who “have a story to tell” may skip commercial or traditional publishers, even subsidy or vanity presses, and go straight to online eBooks. It’s faster, easier, and less expensive, and there’s sometime to be said to “I did it my way!” Approximately 150,000 books are produced each year, and most of them are published by small and independent publishers.

Now answer question #1 honestly. If you want to write for fame and fortune, its best you turn around and choose another career. Pure luck can give some people an edge, and for others talent, friends, relatives in the business, or a famous career in the limelight can help their chances of getting noticed and published.

It’s true you do want a salable book, but marketing and promoting are hard work—sometimes you barely break even. On the other hand, if you are writing because you really have something to say, have the drive of seeing a project through, believe in the truth of your writing regardless of any financial gain, then the chances of accomplishing your goal are reasonable.

Once you answered you writing intentions then proceed to answering the following questions:

What skills do you have for writing?

Is there an audience for your kind of book?

How good are your marketing and promoting skills?

Do you have the financial means to publish a book?

With 150,000 new books a year, what makes yours unique?

You will find that writing is the easy part—publishing and marketing take determination and persistence. If you are committed to your final goal, then nobility of purpose will see you through. Writing is a journey—its own reward.

Commercial publishers don’t have the time or resources to read all of the manuscripts submitted, upwards of 150,000 titles per year. They are looking for name recognition or authors who come with certain sales potential and definite outlets.

Within recent years, self-publishing has become one of the fastest growing segments of the publishing industry. Some of the best authors may not initially be published by a major publishing house, but after the book is printed and marketed in published form, and the author establishes a track record in sales, that book may be picked up by a major publishing house for an attractive contract.

Two such success stories are:

Laurie Notaro’s The Idiot Girls’ Action Adventure Club was originally published by iUniverse, then placed twelfth on the New York Times Paperback Best-Seller List which landed her a six-figure, two-book contract with Random House.

Steven Keslowitz’s The Simpsons and Society was first published by Wheatmark before the book was published by Sourcebooks.

Here’s another important idea you may want to consider as you get started in the writing game. Check local community colleges for adult continuation or special interest classes in writing. Some may even offer workshops or seminars on various aspects of writing. Local libraries are other resources for writing groups, special presentations on writing, or even critique groups. Signing up for a writing course, taking a workshop or joining a critique group can prove beneficial especially if you are a novice writer and may need the support and incentive from others with similar interests. A writing course can also provide the structure and basic techniques necessary for good writing.

Along these same lines, if several of your friends or members of a writing class are interested in working together, you might consider forming your own small writing group. This would allow for immediate feedback and critiquing of your stories, provide opportunities to share similar learning experiences with each other, offer encouragement to get through some of those so called “writer’s block” moments, support each other’s efforts, shed light on new discoveries, and most important, laugh and cry together as you explore the problems of the lonely, yet exhilarating, life of a writer. So with pen in hand and love in your heart, be strong–embrace the unforgiving pain and the sublime joy of the writing life.

Follow writing guidelines; they free you to do what works best for you.

Rules are structures that set limits; true artists transcend to heights unlimited; great art has no borders. But here’s the catch: in order to soar, one needs a solid structure as the launching pad.

Remember those language arts teachers who insisted we bring our journals to class everyday. And then usually before an English composition lesson, we would spend five minutes writing anything that popped into our heads. Forget spelling, grammar, sentence structure, just write, write, write. We were encouraged to free write, to brainstorm all those creative ideas that later would become our coveted “A” English composition papers. No one would ever see these first draft scribblings of ours, but we knew we could never hand-in anything we wrote in our notebooks until we “fixed” it up and made it better for a passing grade.

So too, true artists have learned, practiced and mastered the rules first which then sets them free to soar into their unique creative worlds. Imagine this: what if your novel, story or poem resembled the free writing of your school day journal. How distracting would that be to readers? If the reader doesn’t understand what you’re trying to say, if your lack of writing efficiently interferes with the story line, how long will you hold that reader’s attention? Know the rules first before you break them.

That said; let’s explore some useful writing guidelines that have proven successful in a writer’s creative journey.

Materials you may need for your journey:

1. Notebooks:

You’ll need several handy notebooks, whatever fits into your pocket, purse, briefcase, and glove compartment – use whatever works best for you. Once you start writing your novel, you will be amazed at how many new ideas begin popping into mind any time of the day and night. You’ll want to jot down that good idea, or clever quip before it is lost once again. Good places to keep notebooks are:

ü bedside table

ü bathroom

ü kitchen

ü den or TV room

ü car

ü pocket or purse

ü outside garden or patio

2. Tape recorder:

Some of you may prefer to use small tape recorders instead of notebooks. Recorders work best in cars, especially if you’re driving and that tinge of recollection arises, you’ll want to grab that recorder, click the on-button, and talk your heart out.

Recorders also work well on bedside tables. In no time, you will train yourself to hit the on-button in the dark and talk softly into the recorder without even waking your partner.

3. Several more important items to have close at hand:

ü a comprehensive dictionary

ü an authoritative thesaurus

ü an English grammar handbook

ü plenty of pens or well-sharpened pencils

ü computer or word processor

Where do you go from here?

Writing is a craft. Writers write. Writers write every day; that’s their job. By cultivating the habit of writing regularly, it will make the process easier and more enjoyable. Study the craft; exercise the craft by doing it everyday.